Gotham's Rocking Charity Balls!!

Well, you all know my fondness for faux rock bands that appear in comic book stories.

So imagine my glee when I stumble upon this story, set in Batman's "Year One":

That's Gotham City Councilman Danzig, sadly, not heavy metal frontman Glenn Danzig. Although that would explain an awful lot about Gotham politics...

But we still have a performance by World Public Enemy to look forward to, right?

Well...um...I hope they kept their day jobs.

Surprisingly enough, despite the close-ups and costumes, these women did NOT turn out to be villains or henchpersons. They didn't appear any more at all in the issue, not even a single panel.

But actually, these guys have a history. Pre-Crisis, they were three small-time criminals that some Andy Warhol-type artist tried to turn into pop-art phenomena, well, because:

That was back in Batman #181 (1966). Yes, that was Poison Ivy's first appearance. She wanted the title of "World Public Enemy #1," so she kicked their asses.

That was their last appearance for 30 years, until that post-Crisis transmogrification into a rock band, in Shadow Of The Bat Annual #3 (1995). And yes, that was also the canonical first post-Crisis visit of Poison Ivy to Gotham. She never encountered World Public Enemy this time, though.

And then they vanished until Grant Morrison revived them in 2007 as members of Ra's al Ghul's League Of Assassins during the Resurrection of RaG story. Seriously. And Batman kicked their ass.

All in all, I guess they should have kept the jobs as rockers...at least then they weren't getting their asses kicked (except, perhaps, by the critics).